I've been taking notes for four years. Well, at first it was rather a battle to get into the habit and I failed often, stopped taking notes for month.
For half a year now, I have been following the Zettelkasten method for taking notes. It's working well for me and I actually keep taking notes. So well, that I feel ready to share some interesting insights in connection to Permaculture.
Short explainer what the Zettelkasten method is
It is a system for organizing and storing information. It is based on the idea of putting all of your notes ("Zettel") into a physical box (the "Kasten"), and let the structure emerge. The system was invented by Niklas Luhmann, and he demonstrated the success of his method clearly, the amount of books and articles he wrote in his lifetime is staggering.
Each note is meant to be atomic, not further divisible into separate ideas.
Notes can also reference another note (more on that later).
The notes can be of 3 types:
fleeting notes: notes that are meant to be worked with later, those include for example shower thoughts, rough ideasliterature notes: quotes from books, videos and other media (make sure to include the source). Next to the quote, it's also beneficial to rephrase the content in your own words.permanent notes: original thoughts and complete ideas. These notes are meant to be kept forever and usable
How I combine notes
There are different techniques to link notes to other notes. I personally use the Compass Method, thinking of the 4 cardinal directions a note could point to (where does it come from? where does it lead to? What's related? What's the opposite?)
The links are what make this system so powerful. A random assembly of ideas turns into a structured web of thought.
Consequences of this system
The benefits come over time, notes are not just notes anymore, they become smart notes. Notes stand in reference to each other, can point to further resources. As said earlier, a structure emerges (see screenshots), and this structure helps to correlate ideas, follow train of thoughts and gain new insights.
Psychologically, I also get a little dopamine hit when creating a permanent note. Very motivating, for me at least.
Combining it with modern software
I personally use
Obsidian for taking these notes. It allows me to forget about keeping folders. I can very quickly find notes through the quick search.
The first thing that impressed me using Obsidian was the Graph View which can show you all your notes and their connections but also filtered down to the connections of a single note.
I attached an example of one note which is called "List of elements for The Pines". The note is a basic list of elements we have and want in one part of our homestead. I took a snapshot of the graph while it's still relatively simple but already showing the power of this system. For example we want to "shade" the area, just by virtue of referencing "Shade" we already get one extra idea of "handing clothes to dry" which creates shade. Or the area is next to the "West Wall" of our house. I have a note I took from
Gaia's Garden that explains what kind of microclimate a west wall creates.
I will keep taking notes and I expect this graph to grow and giving more insights.
The Zettelkasten method is permaculture-esque
Not only does it generate "permanent" notes but it really focuses a lot on the connections of notes and ideas. It encourages to take note of observations. I find it very helpful for research. Personally, it also helps me to
actually read books in a way that I can retain the information better.
I hope you find this information useful.
